> Thus we can have multi-hour podcasts with politicians asked real questions on the audiences mind; we can have companies held to account for the real quality of their products; films, games, and other media can be reviewed by people who share the tastes of their audiences -- rather than have their tastes "made" by the nominated ad-friendly elite.
The problem is, it's increasingly less attractive. Like, the NordVPN, AG1 supplement or whatever else shill scripts, they're all the damn same, it's annoying, particularly if you know the product being shilled is a fucking scam like AG1.
With "traditional" media you at least had some regulatory requirements here in Europe - either ad blocks clearly labeled as "advertising", or a permanent "infomercial" text overlay. And anything that was advertising outside of these two factors meant fines, sometimes serious ones, for violating the regulatory framework ("Schleichwerbung", see Art. 13 European Convention on Transfrontier Television [1]).
But these days? You can't be sure that influencers comply with even the bare minimum of regulation that exists, and no one takes care about prosecuting anyway.
Sure, but let's do like-for-like. MLMs and other scams were institutionalised before crypto -- the bushes and top cliton admin people were right there on their payroll. Madelein albright was infamous as an MLM shill. All this was conducted on the mainstream media of that era.
TV never protected people from scams, the law did. TV was the propaganda organ of a corrput elite --- see no more than george bush snr complaining about the simpsons, prefering the cosbys -- a man himself who turned up at the funeral on one of the most psychopathic of the Eron scammers, who was flown to his own inauguration in one of their private jets.
The original conservative cultural elite used the mainstream media to create an illusion of western life consistent with values they wish to see the public perform. Values they themselves did not practice.
They were not protecting people from scams. They were in on the largest scams in american history.
> TV never protected people from scams, the law did.
Indeed, that's my point. And that even for Americans, despite y'all's regulations (particularly when it comes to product placements) being far more relaxed than in Europe.
The problem is, the law hasn't even come close to catching up with reality for well over a decade. Influencers obviously - look no further than Fyre Festival or multi-million subscriber YouTubers that have a primary audience of children shilling online casinos [1] - but also the platforms themselves. YouTube is particularly egregious... in TV the regulation here is 12 minutes per hour and minimum 30 minutes between ad breaks [2], but YouTube? If you're not subscribing for Premium, it's a 30 second preroll and about a minute or two every 5-ish minutes - on top of the influencer's own ad roll that's usually 2 minutes per 10-minute video. That ad load is ridiculous.
The problem is, it's increasingly less attractive. Like, the NordVPN, AG1 supplement or whatever else shill scripts, they're all the damn same, it's annoying, particularly if you know the product being shilled is a fucking scam like AG1.
With "traditional" media you at least had some regulatory requirements here in Europe - either ad blocks clearly labeled as "advertising", or a permanent "infomercial" text overlay. And anything that was advertising outside of these two factors meant fines, sometimes serious ones, for violating the regulatory framework ("Schleichwerbung", see Art. 13 European Convention on Transfrontier Television [1]).
But these days? You can't be sure that influencers comply with even the bare minimum of regulation that exists, and no one takes care about prosecuting anyway.
[1] https://rm.coe.int/168007b0f0